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Daily Digest

Winchester Fred’s Sells for $1.8 Million

The Fred’s store at 7143 Winchester Road in Southeast Memphis has sold for $1.8 million. Freds Partners LLC bought the 16,611-square-foot store in a June 26 special warranty deed from the property’s developer, McCarver Development of Jackson, Tenn.

The buyer is an affiliate of Lawrence, N.Y.-based Bluejay Management.

Built in 2012, the Class B retail store sits on part of a 22-acre parcel along the south side of Winchester Road between Riverdale and South Germantown roads. The Shelby County Assessor of Property’s 2013 appraisal is $1.5 million.

In conjunction with the purchase, Freds Partners filed a $1.2 million deed of trust and security agreement through Protective Life Insurance Co.

Yerachmeal Jacobson signed the trust deed as authorized manager of the borrower. Jacobson is chief operating officer of Bluejay Management.

Source: The Daily News Online & Chandler Reports

– Daily News staff

Downtown Commission Creates Design Guidelines

After a nearly two-year process the Downtown Memphis Commission has produced the final draft of the Design Guidelines for Downtown.

The commission’s Design Review Board will review the document at its Aug. 7 meeting and the DMC board will be asked to consider adopting the final draft at its Aug. 21 meeting.

The 184-page document will guide the use of new technologies and materials, strategies of sustainable design, how public improvements – including sidewalk and streetscaping – should be pursued and how construction should be context-appropriate.

The goals are to promote maintaining Downtown as a “cohesive and livable place with an attractive pedestrian-oriented environment” while promoting the “preservation of historic, cultural and architectural heritage,” according to the DMC.

– Amos Maki

County Pension Fund Keeps Riding High

Driven in part by stock market gains, the value of the pension fund that pays benefits to Shelby County retirees in May was back to a high not seen since before the 2008 recession.

The size of the retirement defined benefit plan portfolio stood at nearly $1.03 billion in May. The last time the value was higher than that was in December 2007.

Continuing a pattern, the fund for each of the first four months of 2013 has surpassed the monthly values for the first four months of every year back to 2007.

– Andy Meek

Electrolux Donates Air Conditioners

Executives at the Memphis Electrolux plant donated 200 room-size window air conditioning units Friday, July 12, as part of efforts by the Metropolitan Interfaith Association and Neighborhood Christian Centers to help needy Memphians in the worst of the summer heat.

The Frigidaire air conditioning units were donated as part of a larger effort with donations by Electrolux this week in Charlotte, N.C., Springfield, Tenn., and Anderson S.C., where the company also has manufacturing plants and headquarters.

Electrolux makes the Frigidaire units.

The units donated in Memphis will be distributed through Neighborhood Christian Centers to Shelby County residents in need. Call 881-6013 Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for information on how to apply.

– Bill Dries

Advisory Board Formed For UTHSC College of Medicine

City leaders gathered earlier last week at the Hamilton Eye Institute boardroom at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine over concerns about health care and higher education in Memphis.

The 18 meeting attendees, including Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell, state Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris, and local CEOs and civic leaders, formed an ongoing advisory board for the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine. The advisory group will provide evidence and value-based approaches to delivering health care to physicians-in-training as well as finding new ways to reach out to the community.

Participants gathered at the behest of Dr. David Stern, executive dean of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine and David Levine, a business consultant who is the former chairman and CEO of ResortQuest International.

The next advisory board meeting is scheduled for the fall.

– Jennifer Johnson Backer

UTHSC Names Champlin Assistant Vice Chancellor

The University of Tennessee Health Science Center has named Shelia Champlin assistant vice chancellor for communications and marketing.

Since May 2006, Champlin has served as director of the department, managing a staff of seven professionals, in addition to freelancers and consultants. Champlin manages all internal and external communications and marketing for the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. She also oversees all media relations, advertising, alumni publications, social media campaigns, crisis management and collaboration with the Knoxville-based public relations team.

Prior to joining UTHSC, Champlin worked as a Memphis-based communications consultant. She began her career in New York at Chase Manhattan and Irving Trust and also worked for Ogilvy Adams & Rinehart.

Champlin holds a bachelor’s degree from Saint Louis University and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

– Jennifer Johnson Backer

Six Bids Taken as State Looks to Lease Office Space

The state has taken six sealed bids on Nashville office space with the intent of moving workers out of the state-owned Cordell Hull Building.

The offers were made under a process that also names Jones Lang LaSalle of Chicago as the state’s broker, giving the real estate firm a 4 percent commission if a deal is closed. State officials plan to sign a deal by Aug. 19. The initial contract would move 301 Department of Children’s Services employees into leased commercial space.

State officials cite a review performed by the broker in saying the six-decade-old building has a water seepage problem and it would cost more than $24 million to keep the building in use.

Officials say the state Open Records Law allows them to take bids under seal.

About 1,000 state employees work in the Cordell Hull Building, next to the state Capitol.

State documents say the government could lease up to 173,000 square feet of office space in Hamilton County and up to 100,000 square feet in Shelby County.

In Nashville, the bids are for 73,000 square feet.

– The Associated Press

UPS: Q2 Profit SmallerThan Analysts Expected

UPS shares tumbled Friday after it predicted disappointing second-quarter earnings and reduced its profit forecast for the full year.

United Parcel Service Co. and rival FedEx Corp. are suffering as customers increasingly trade down from expensive priority shipping to slower and less expensive options. UPS expects this and other trends to continue.

The Atlanta company said that second-quarter earnings, excluding special items, would be $1.13 per share. Analysts were expecting $1.20 per share, according to a survey by FactSet.

For all of 2013, UPS lowered its profit forecast to between $4.65 and $4.85 per share. That’s down from a January prediction of $4.80 to $5.06 per share. Analysts expected $4.98 per share.

UPS blamed the gloomier outlook on overcapacity in airfreight shipping, which pushes prices down; the shift to cheaper shipping options; a slowing U.S. industrial economy; and “some slowing” in volume growth as a result of labor negotiations. It did not explain how the labor talks affected volume.

Last month, FedEx reported a 45 percent drop in quarterly profit due largely to international customers trading down to cheaper forms of delivery and money that the company spent upfront in hopes of eventually reducing costs through, among other steps, offering buyouts for employees to quit. FedEx saw lucrative international priority shipments fall 2 percent during the quarter while less-expensive economy deliveries grew 11 percent.